Read Online California Bloodstock by Terry McDonell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Terry McDonell
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hound, sniffing out the vile indecorums of others, peeking through the cracks and crevices of the new American settlement.
He was especially taken with the notion of cunnilingus, Mormon cunnilingus better yet. He ached to see some gruff old patriarch of the seventh tribe yodeling up vulva canyons, lapping his way around a circle of pious young wives. As it was, only the sad-eyed Worm Eaters were given to such nibblings, and watching them was like watching animals. Mormons would be different, Slant was sure of it.
33
Cargo West
Slant took lodging on Battery Street, a wide dirt promenade that ran along the waterfront. Clearly Yerba Buena’s rowdiest strip, it boasted three solid warehouses and one rather attractive structure standing amid a confusion of crumbling mud huts, driftwood sheds, and canvas lean-tos. The handsome building, a two-story wood and adobe arrangement, was known as Cargo West and it was there that Slant felt most at ease.
A combination gentlemen’s club, brothel, and hotel, Cargo West was a mecca for buyers and sellers, a place where deals could be made, a place to be. It was never clear who owned controlling interest in the place, although Larkin was sometimes mentioned in this regard. It was, however, very clear that the place was making a lot of money and was frequented by men to be taken seriously.
Evenings, such men would make their way through the riffraff, copulating, drinking, and cheating each other randomly in open shanties, to findcivilized fellowship and masculine recreation at Cargo West. Even the most upright, men like Captain John Montgomery (U.S.N.), could be found among the clientele.
Slant took a suite upstairs and for a substantial bribe was permitted by the management to fashion a series of peepholes in his floor. He had one view of the large barroom that occupied a third of the main floor and another of one of the tiny rooms used for more intimate social contact.
Cargo West was run by a low-hipped woman of middle years who was said to have bounced her melon-sized breasts on the shoulders of congressmen as a younger woman in New Jersey. She was a real Wild Emma, in the nomenclature of the period, and was just cocky enough to take up the widespread label for any white woman with a good-time spirit and use it as her own name.
My name is Emma, she would say, greeting newcomers at the door, and I’m the wildest Emma of them all.
Wild Emma was very shrewd, and like all the other women who eventually made fortunes in California, she had no illusions about the men she catered to. Her operation at Cargo West was simple. She employed a sullen Greek with aristocratic manners as head barman and instructed him to make sure that every man taking a drink knew that she, Wild Emma, was indeed the only high-living gringo woman for thousands of miles and that if they expected to be welcome they had best mind their manners.
She filled the tiny rooms off the bar with pretty young Worm Eaters she got from Hippolyte Weed.They generally lasted anywhere from four to ten months, at which time some were retained as maids. The less fortunate were simply turned out on Battery Street to make do as best they could. Since a tour at Cargo West left almost all of them either hollow-eyed and withdrawn or giddy with dependence on the sweet wine they were encouraged to drink with customers, they usually slid into one of the surrounding three-sided hovels to screw and beg for whatever they could get.
Well, Wild Emma would say if any of her customers turned high-minded about the fate of one or another of the Worm Eaters, you can always marry her. Subject closed.
Wild Emma was suspicious of old T. D. from the beginning. Guests who took upstairs rooms got automatic Worm-Eater privileges along with their board, but all this old fool Slant wanted was to drill holes in the floor. And he walked funny, some kind of Sneaky-Pete for sure.
So Wild Emma was cool toward old T. D. Slant, even when she took his money. Her
He was especially taken with the notion of cunnilingus, Mormon cunnilingus better yet. He ached to see some gruff old patriarch of the seventh tribe yodeling up vulva canyons, lapping his way around a circle of pious young wives. As it was, only the sad-eyed Worm Eaters were given to such nibblings, and watching them was like watching animals. Mormons would be different, Slant was sure of it.
33
Cargo West
Slant took lodging on Battery Street, a wide dirt promenade that ran along the waterfront. Clearly Yerba Buena’s rowdiest strip, it boasted three solid warehouses and one rather attractive structure standing amid a confusion of crumbling mud huts, driftwood sheds, and canvas lean-tos. The handsome building, a two-story wood and adobe arrangement, was known as Cargo West and it was there that Slant felt most at ease.
A combination gentlemen’s club, brothel, and hotel, Cargo West was a mecca for buyers and sellers, a place where deals could be made, a place to be. It was never clear who owned controlling interest in the place, although Larkin was sometimes mentioned in this regard. It was, however, very clear that the place was making a lot of money and was frequented by men to be taken seriously.
Evenings, such men would make their way through the riffraff, copulating, drinking, and cheating each other randomly in open shanties, to findcivilized fellowship and masculine recreation at Cargo West. Even the most upright, men like Captain John Montgomery (U.S.N.), could be found among the clientele.
Slant took a suite upstairs and for a substantial bribe was permitted by the management to fashion a series of peepholes in his floor. He had one view of the large barroom that occupied a third of the main floor and another of one of the tiny rooms used for more intimate social contact.
Cargo West was run by a low-hipped woman of middle years who was said to have bounced her melon-sized breasts on the shoulders of congressmen as a younger woman in New Jersey. She was a real Wild Emma, in the nomenclature of the period, and was just cocky enough to take up the widespread label for any white woman with a good-time spirit and use it as her own name.
My name is Emma, she would say, greeting newcomers at the door, and I’m the wildest Emma of them all.
Wild Emma was very shrewd, and like all the other women who eventually made fortunes in California, she had no illusions about the men she catered to. Her operation at Cargo West was simple. She employed a sullen Greek with aristocratic manners as head barman and instructed him to make sure that every man taking a drink knew that she, Wild Emma, was indeed the only high-living gringo woman for thousands of miles and that if they expected to be welcome they had best mind their manners.
She filled the tiny rooms off the bar with pretty young Worm Eaters she got from Hippolyte Weed.They generally lasted anywhere from four to ten months, at which time some were retained as maids. The less fortunate were simply turned out on Battery Street to make do as best they could. Since a tour at Cargo West left almost all of them either hollow-eyed and withdrawn or giddy with dependence on the sweet wine they were encouraged to drink with customers, they usually slid into one of the surrounding three-sided hovels to screw and beg for whatever they could get.
Well, Wild Emma would say if any of her customers turned high-minded about the fate of one or another of the Worm Eaters, you can always marry her. Subject closed.
Wild Emma was suspicious of old T. D. from the beginning. Guests who took upstairs rooms got automatic Worm-Eater privileges along with their board, but all this old fool Slant wanted was to drill holes in the floor. And he walked funny, some kind of Sneaky-Pete for sure.
So Wild Emma was cool toward old T. D. Slant, even when she took his money. Her
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